Our Work

Our Work

Leadership Training Institute

Since its founding in 2014, JLUSA’s Leadership Training Institute has provided thousands of directly impacted people across the nation with the expertise, skills, and social capital they need to be effective leaders. Today, JLUSA alumni are founding their own organizations, mounting community-based reform campaigns, sitting on boards and commissions, and advising policymakers. We are providing tools and a connection to resources so they can build local power within their own communities.

So far, JLUSA has trained more than 1,600 people from 45 states and Washington, D.C.

JLUSA’s Leadership Training Institute is built upon three pillars:  

Leading with Conviction™

A cohort-based, 12-month-long advanced leadership training specifically tailored for leaders directly impacted by the criminal justice or youth justice system.

Emerging Leaders™

An intensive community-focused training specifically designed for emerging leaders organizing in communities most impacted by marginalization and incarceration.

Leadership In Action

JLUSA is activating its network of leaders needed to initiate and lead policy reform efforts in their respective communities.

International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training

JustLeadershipUSA is accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and offers IACET CEUs for its learning events (Leading with Conviction™) that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard. IACET is recognized internationally as a standard development organization and accrediting body that promotes quality of continuing education and training.

#2MillionVoices

Our #2MillionVoices program–named for the number of people in our nation’s jails and prisons–reaches out to those on the inside and invites them to share with us their thoughts, concerns, recommendations, and solutions.

The Bard Micro-College for Just Community Leadership

JLUSA is partnering with the Bard Prison Initiative and College & Community Fellowship on the opening of a tuition-free microcollege housed in the Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem, New York. It is the nation’s first tuition-free college dedicated to advocacy, arts, and sciences, and its first class of students entered in the fall of 2021.

Partnership with The American Institutes for Research 

JLUSA is partnering with The American Institutes for Research (AIR), a behavioral and social science research, evaluation, and technical assistance organization based in Washington, D.C., on its COuRSE (Community Outreach for Resilience, Safety & Equity) Community Change Initiative.

The Safety and Justice Challenge

JLUSA serves as a Strategic Ally for the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC). SJC is a five-year, multi-million dollar challenge initiated by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.